Archive for July 10th, 2013

Ruairi Henchy from Ireland is in Gaza on a 12 day visit with the Welcome to Gaza Convoy. Below is an excerpt from his blog with a link to follow for the full post, with pictures…..

“The comparison is often made between the Palestine–Israel conflict and the Troubles in the north of Ireland. Personally I think it’s a very tenuous comparison but hearing the Al-Louh family’s story brought me back to my studies of Bobby Sands. In One Day in My Life he gave a moment by moment insight into the nature of his struggle in the H blocks and one particular line of the book came to me when I was reflecting on Fayza Al-Louh’s words. I remember being mystified as to how a simple working class man, through sheer force of will, had focused the eyes of the world on his struggle and backed the British government into a corner on its treatment of prisoners. In one of the few triumphant notes of the book Sands sums up the power of the individual, no matter how great the odds: “They have nothing in their whole imperial arsenal that can break the spirit of one Irishman who doesn’t want to be broken”. The Al-Louhs are a simple farming family who have come up against the fourth greatest military power in the world and experienced first-hand the terror of being gassed with white phosphorous and bombed by F-16s. But no matter how many soldiers, planes and tanks they mobilise or how many atomic and chemical weapons they stockpile, the Israeli Occupation Forces still can’t break the will of even one Palestinian family who refuse to be defeated…………..”